Hilzoy has linked to a report by Physicians for Human Rights about the health effects of U.S. sanctioned torture on prisoners are Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other prisons operated with our governments knowledge and consent. The report goes into deep detail for 11 former prisoners. Hilzoy has written out her reaction, which is worth reading, as always.

I don’t know much about the group, nor have I had time to read more than the executive summary. However, the report’s preface is by Maj. General Antonio Taguba (Ret.), who led the official Army investigation into these abuses back in 2004. His report was a respectable attempt to hold the Army accountable, at least as much as an internally requested report could be expected to be. Here are some of his words in the preface:

The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full-scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted —both on America’s institutions and our nation’s founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.

…

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war
crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

…

But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution.

And so do the American people.

Read through these stories. This torture was carried out in our name, in yours, mine, and under the flag of our great nation. In our fear and our nation’s inability to stand by our principles, we destroyed the lives of at these 11 people and many many more.

Hilzoy says it best:

I never thought a report on things that were done in my name would include sentences like: “Examination of the peri-anal area showed signs of rectal tearing that are highly consistent with his report of having been sodomized with a broomstick.” I never thought my country would fall this low.

Nor did I. We should be embarrassed that the President isn’t on trial for this, and that those that sanctioned and crafted the legal framework for this policy aren’t, at the very least, being compelled to testify and acknowledge what they did to Congress and the American people.

Though I would normally do this as a series of link posts, this story is important, and I want to make sure that those that read the site by actually coming here see the full set of links.

The CIA has destroyed video tapes that document interrogations of terrorism suspects. These interrogations used the “harsh” interrogation techniques that most reasonable people would call torture. Facing an investigation into these techniques and an possible Democratic White House and veto-proof majority coming in the next year, it seems clear that the CIA destroyed these tapes in order to prevent several things from happening.

First, the tapes would should the techniques we used, laying the CIA and the agents involved at risk for a war crimes trial.

Second, it would shed a harsh light on the quality of the information we’ve received from these suspects. I mean, honestly, if the tapes showed how these interrogations stopped an imminent attack, the White House would’ve used it for the positive press, you can bank on that. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve used classified counter-terrorism efforts as propaganda.

Anyway, I’m making points others have made better. Consider this the rundown of good posts:

• Torture Tapes | TPMCafe – Article by Larry Johnson, who was in the CIA and State’s Counter Terrorism office until ‘93
• Did someone mention CIA videotapes? – Dana Perino (WH Press Secretary) at Friday’s Press Briefing
• CIA ignored warnings about interrogation videos
• Hamilton sees obstruction
• What the Tapes Would Have Shown – Washington Monthly

Read the first post, and read the Washington Monthly article if you don’t have time to read anything else in the list.

I can’t help but feel powerless here… these people are ignoring the law and are facing no consequences here. It’s ridiculous, but being at least marginally aware of our own history, I know it’s not the first or only time stuff like this has happened. I just wish these people would have to face real consequences for damaging our country like this.

I read this NYTimes article with complete disbelief. It follows the treatment of two detainees held in a military prison in Iraq, and the details are outrageous.

The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.

Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

That’s right: they took an American citizen who wasn’t an enemy combatant and detained him without counsel or charges. They held an American citizen without proof or charges. Because they didn’t talk to other agencies outside the DOD (for example the FBI), they didn’t have a clear picture of the situation.

“Even Saddam Hussein had more legal counsel than I ever had,” said Mr. Vance, who said he planned to sue the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on grounds that his constitutional rights had been violated. “While we were detained, we wrote a letter to the camp commandant stating that the same democratic ideals we are trying to instill in the fledgling democratic country of Iraq, from simple due process to the Magna Carta, we are absolutely, positively refusing to follow ourselves.”

This is George Bush’s America. This is the America created by fearmongering Republicans who spent so much of their convention scaring people about 9/11 so they could lead the country deeper into this hell. This country was founded by people whose purpose was to curtail a government running roughshod over their rights. These limits form the core of our Constitution.

None of that matters to this administration, though, which has declared itself judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to detainees. Even more troubling is that the military considers this to be a perfectly normal situation. There’s no investigation into what happened or how it happened, and there’s no indication that anyone in the military believes there’s something to correct here. A system built and geared around preventing innocents from going to jail has been turned into one that doesn’t mind if innocents go to jail and are tortured. Tough luck, I guess.

Just read some of this stuff, it’s surreal:

A spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s detention operations in Iraq, First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso, said in written answers to questions that the men had been “treated fair and humanely,” and that there was no record of either man complaining about their treatment.

This is an idiotic response. As Atrios says:

Now, the reporter lets this comment stand without any response. The smart reader, of course, will note its Kafkaesque absurdity. They didn’t have access to attorneys. They were placed in solitary confinement. They were in cold cells, with fluorescent lights left on all night.

And First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso is suggesting she checked with the Complaints Department, and found nothing, so there’s nothing to see here.

Among the rights guaranteed by our Constitution include the right to face your accuser and to see the evidence against you. Not in George Bush’s America:

At the hearings, a woman and two men wearing Army uniforms but no name tags or rank designations sat a table with two stacks of documents. One was about an inch thick, and the men were allowed to see some papers from that stack. The other pile was much thicker, but they were told that this pile was evidence only the board could see.

…

On May 7, the Camp Cropper detention board met again, without either man present, and determined that Mr. Ertel was “an innocent civilian,” according to the spokeswoman for detention operations. It took authorities 18 more days to release him.

…

The military has never explained why it continued to consider Mr. Vance a security threat, except to say that officials decided to release him after further review of his case.

Read the entire article, it’s completely unbelievable. If this is how they’re treating American citizens, I shudder to think how they’re treating innocent Iraqis captured off the streets. In a war that aims to create a democracy in a country ravaged by a brutal dictatorship, acting like the former government isn’t going to allow people to trust the new government. When people are intimidated, they will seek protection. The militias and the insurgents provide that and they provide that protection against us as much as they do the other sects.

It’s why we need to leave, not because it’s not important to see things through in Iraq, but because we’ve become part of the problem. We’re not going to be able to be part of the solution, especially if people listen to folks like McCain, Lieberman, and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno instead of folks like Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli who suggest funneling more money to job creation programs in Baghdad.

Ultimately, intimidation won’t work. People are afraid of the police, they’re afraid of us, and therefore, they will ally themselves with the militias who claim to protect them. Changing that dynamic is most important and a larger American force isn’t going to help.

I’ll leave you with this nice little bit from the Times article linked two paragraphs above:

The neighborhood is not far from the site of a suicide bombing on Tuesday in which at least 70 Shiite day laborers were killed and more than 230 wounded.

The gunmen drove up in cars with police markings and brandished automatic rifles, witnesses said. “People were in a panic,” said a 36-year-old spare-parts merchant. “Some people were trying to close their shops and leave. Others were just trying to slip away. I walked away as fast as I could. A few seconds later, I heard heavy shooting.”

Another merchant said he broke free from the gunmen before they could shove him into a car. “They seemed to know who they wanted to kidnap because they’d take one person and leave others behind,” he said.

The men were blindfolded and driven off to a building in an unknown location, a Shiite man who was later freed said. He said the captives were shackled and kept in a poorly lighted room. The kidnappers asked the victims whether they were Sunni or Shiite, and whether they had ties to any terrorist groups.

By late Thursday, at least 25 abductees had been freed, all Shiites, the Interior Ministry official said. It was unclear how many others — presumably Sunnis, though that was impossible to determine — were still being held.

Because the violence wasn’t wanton (people seem to be getting released), I suspect this was a more “official” police action. Frightening democracy we’ve created.

This is why I’m not a fan of Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT). He seems like he would be a good representative and one that could represent the “grown-up” Republicans of yore. But then he’ll just turn around and bend to the party spin and say some stupid things. It’s become pretty clear that he’s not really focused on any principle. How else could he describe electrocuting prisoners as not torture, but “a sex ring?” Watch:

He doesn’t deserve to be in Congress and I hope the people of the 4th District elect Diane Farrell. Consider donating if you’re in her district.

(via TPM)

On one hand, we have Joe Lieberman, who voted for the detainee bill, and who clearly doesn’t get why America is special. On the other hand, we have our senior Senator from Connecticut, who wrote a very timely editorial in the LA Times explaining why he voted nay. I’ve excerpted a part below, but you should go read the whole thing. (via The Washington Note)

SIXTY YEARS AGO today, at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, the verdicts were read in a trial that will forever define the punishment of war criminals. One by one, the 22 top surviving Nazi officers of Adolf Hitler were sentenced. By the time the gavel sounded, three had been acquitted, seven sent to prison and 12 condemned to death.

One of the people in court that day was my father, 38-year-old attorney Thomas Dodd, who was the No. 2 prosecutor for the United States behind Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. My father always considered Nuremberg to be the most meaningful experience of his life.

My father wrote more than 400 letters to my mother from Nuremberg. Many are devoted to how much he missed his wife and children; others to the Nazis he had met.

But some of his harshest words were reserved for the Russians, who had little interest in a fair trial. In one letter, he tells the story of a toast offered by a visiting Soviet dignitary, who raised a glass and said: “May the road for these war criminals from the courthouse to the grave be a very short one.”

“I winced,” my father wrote, “and I could see that Judge [John J.] Parker, the American alternative, was certainly embarrassed.”

But of course, a quick trial that led to quick executions was the temptation. The world had seen a monstrous regime try to conquer the world. It had seen them take the lives of more than tens of millions of men, women and children.

Why not just give in to vengeance? Why not just shoot them, as Winston Churchill wanted to do? Why not just succumb to the law of power politics and impose our will without any regard to principle? Why not just give in to violence, which was certainly within our ability and, many argued, within our right?

Why not? Because the United States has always stood for something more.

We have, and we should always stand for something more. Dodd finishes with this quote:

We would do well to remember the words of Justice Jackson: “We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”

Thank you, Senator Dodd, for speaking up.

(Of course, I have to ask, where were you for the past 3 weeks?)

I admit, I took the day off from work and completely tuned out everything to give my brain a rest. I also felt that common sense would prevail in the Senate. After all, they’re far less prone to radical election posturing. A bill authorizing the President to detain people without trial or even charges would fit the definition of radical. It wouldn’t pass in the Senate.

Obviously, I was wrong. The bill passed 65-34. Our horrible Senator, Joseph Lieberman voted for the bill (Dodd voted Nay), along with 11 other Democrats. Despite his moralistic bombast on other issues, Senator Lieberman is apparently pro-torture and against the Bill of Rights.

To put a clear frame on the electoral posturing here, only one Republican, moderate Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), voted against the bill. The remaining 33 votes were Dems and Jeffords (I-VT).

It’s 3AM, and I don’t have the energy to write something deep and meaningful here. So, I’ll direct you to some other people who have done the job for me:

• Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings reacts.
• The NY Times details why this bill is an affront to everything America stands for.

• Glenn Greenwald points out some truly remarkable statements about this bill:

  Jay Rockefeller (who voted for this bill) is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. When he was defending the amendment he introduced to compel the CIA to disclose to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees information about their interrogation activities, he complained that the White House has concealed all information about the interrogation program and that the Intelligence Committee members (including him) therefore know nothing about it. His amendment to compel reports to Congress was defeated with all Republicans (except Chafee) voting against it. He proceeded to vote for the underlying bill anyway, thereby legalizing a program he admits he knows nothing about (and will continue to know nothing about).

  oversight? We don’t need no stinkin’ oversight… Apparently, Congressional oversight emboldens terrorists.

It would not be an overstatement that I’d like to scream into my monitor right now. I would, and it wouldn’t be an overreaction, except that Heidi is sleeping and it is, after all, 3:43AM.

Our Congress, with the help of both parties (goddamn pansy Democrats that didn’t filibuster this to hell), just sold out the most basic of American values. They just enabled the President to define his own laws, to imprison people indefinitely simply by calling them a name, and then prevented any check on this power by either Congress or the judiciary. All in order to boost their own standings in the 2006 election.

Stupid Democrats, for not realizing that people would’ve seen through the bullshit had they stood up from the beginning. Consistency would outweigh demagoguery and the 32 that voted against this bill should’ve been screaming about this from the beginning.

Stupid Republicans for being the craven, corrupt, and cavalier representatives they are. They don’t care about our country, they just care about winning. Orwell had a point:

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others ; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. … We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

If that doesn’t describe the modern Republican party, I’m not sure what does.

Stupid us, for falling for this type of garbage during each election. They use fear to manipulate us, they use a war of choice (“preemption”) to promote the jingoist, and they treat us like idiots. As long as we keep voting for this nonsense, or keep putting inconsequential issues like abortion or marriage amendments above the welfare of our nation, we will suffer the consequences.

America changed on Thursday. So, now the question is, what are you doing to change it back? All we need is one house taken by the Democrats and we can start working our way back to an America that we are proud of.

I’ve been reading more on the Maher Arar story and I’m now upset. I’m amazed that our rendition and torture policies are still a matter of debate. This is a perfect example of how these policies can’t work.

What’s worse, though, is where these policies have taken us. Maher Arar was taken to Syria. The same Syria we consider to be a terrorist supporting state. The same Syria that supplied the rockets Hezbollah fired into Israel. We are working with them to torture people. We share intelligence with them. I seriously doubt they’re helping us for free. Makes you proud to have Bush as our president. I mean, where would our foreign policy be without those geniuses at the helm.

I also saw excerpts of Hugo Chavez’s speech at the UN today, and I’m watching CNN and Fox reacting in disgust that people applauded him. Why are they surprised? Rendition, torture, and unilateral wars enables the likes of Hugo Chavez or Ahmadinejad. People who feel bullied or powerless look to those that stand up to power. They don’t necessarily care whether they’re extremist in some ways. Dictators have done this on a national scale so often it’s almost cliche. The worst moments in history have been created by those excused because they gave strength where people found none before.

If we really believe that the United States stands for something more than just might, we need to step back and take another look at these policies. If we believe that we represent more than economic muscle, we need to behave like that. We need to stop acting like a scared animal, lashing out blindly simply because we can. We need to start acting like people who believe in the rule of law, who believe that our actions speak louder than our words, and who live up to the ideals written in our constitution.

Those that support the President’s policies choose to be scared animals, flexing their muscles and lashing out at anything that they can imagine as a threat. At the end of that road lies the weakening of American power. It raises the profile of folks like Chavez and exposes the weaknesses that are appearing in American soft power. I don’t care whether we choose to be multilateralists or realist, I just want us to stop being stupid.

Too often discussions about extraordinary renditions and torture end up being completely theoretical. You know the arguments: the ticking bombs, “they’re terrorists, screw ‘em”, or that torture may be the only/best way to get information. No matter that these arguments are generally flawed. At the core of all of these ideas is that we somehow know that we’ve got the right people and that they know what we think they know.

Beyond that, though, extraordinary renditions are wrong for other reasons. We cede control over these investigations to authorities of other countries who have their own sense of right and wrong. In the case of some partner nations, this might not be too risky. But in other cases, we destroy any hope of defeating the sort of hate and distrust that drives terrorists in the first place. Say, for example, partnering with a country like Uzbekistan where it seems we and the Brits encouraged the torture of children:

11. The torture record of the Uzbek security services could hardly be more widely known. Plainly there are, at the very least, reasonable grounds for believing the material is obtained under torture. There is helpful guidance at Article 3 of the UN Convention;
“The competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the state concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.” While this article forbids extradition or deportation to Uzbekistan, it is the right test for the present question also.

12. On the usefulness of the material obtained, this is irrelevant. Article 2 of the Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer:

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

13. Nonetheless, I repeat that this material is useless – we are selling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful. It is designed to give the message the Uzbeks want the West to hear. It exaggerates the role, size, organisation and activity of the IMU and its links with Al Qaida. The aim is to convince the West that the Uzbeks are a vital cog against a common foe, that they should keep the assistance, especially military assistance, coming, and that they should mute the international criticism on human rights and economic reform.

14. I was taken aback when Matthew Kydd said this stuff was valuable. Sixteen months ago it was difficult to argue with SIS in the area of intelligence assessment. But post Butler we know, not only that they can get it wrong on even the most vital and high profile issues, but that they have a particular yen for highly coloured material which exaggerates the threat. That is precisely what the Uzbeks give them. Furthermore MI6 have no operative within a thousand miles of me and certainly no expertise that can come close to my own in making this assessment.

15. At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family’s links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.

Go to the web site and make your own judgement on the integrity of the source. He’s the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, so he might actually know what he’s talking about. He’s publishing letters he wrote back to the British government in order to highlight problems he saw with the policies of the British government. Lest anyone think this doesn’t necessarily mean Americans are doing this, remember that we’ve been pretty close to the Uzbek government in the past. We may have even done this ourselves.

It’s a sad statement about the conduct of the U.S. government, our own adherence to human rights and international law, and our collective moral compass that we embrace policies that so horribly contradict everything our country stands for. That advocates for torture want to enshrine this behavior into law, well, that just makes me angry and sad.

Just go read this excellent commentary: THE BELGRAVIA DISPATCH: Torture Isn’t a Laughing Matter–It’s Deadly Serious.

Kieran Healy has an excellent explanation about why torture never is good policy. It’s fascinating to me to watch the power of fear come over people in this country. I’ve always wanted to believe that we’ve moved beyond this, but the fact that this is still an ongoing debate says otherwise.